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Bel canto (Italian, beautiful singing), an Italian musical term,
refers to the art and science of vocal technique which originated in Italy
during the late sixteenth century and reached its pinnacle in the early
part of the nineteenth century during the Bel Canto opera era. Rossini,
Bellini, and Donizetti are the best-known exponents of this style, which
flourished from approximately 1810 to 1830. Some would credit the 17th
century composer Pietro Cavalli with introducing bel canto, but his
smooth and flowing melodic lines form a different style that belongs to a
different era. Bel canto singing is characterized by a focus on perfect evenness
throughout the voice, skillful legato, a light upper register, tremendous
agility and flexibility, and a certain lyric, "sweet" timbre. Operas of the
style featured extensive and florid ornamentation, requiring much in the
way of fast scales and cadenzas. Emphasizing technique over volume,
bel canto style has famously been linked to an exercise said to
demonstrate its epitome, where a singer holds a lit candle to her mouth
and sings without causing the flame to flicker.
While the bel canto period is typically dated to the early 19th century,
the term itself did not come to be commonly used in its current sense
until the middle of the 19th century. It was at this time that composers
such as Wagner began to call for larger, more dramatic voices;
opponents of this trend complained, with Rossini, "Alas for us, we have
lost our bel canto."
The sopranos Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland were probably the
best-known bel canto singers of the postwar period. (Virginia Zeani and
Leyla Gencer were both bel canto sopranos of equal abilities, but they
made fewer recordings and, thus, were less famous in America.) For
many years, the bel canto tenor was a rarity; however, since the
appearance of Chris Merritt and Rockwell Blake they have been making
a comeback. Skilled bel canto tenors of today include Raul Gimenez, Juan
Juan Diego Flórez and William Matteuzzi | | | | | | | | |  | |
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